


Kill Your Darlings

by quietest_one



Category: NCIS
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Death and Violence warnings refer to discussion of Kate's death, Deep Six, Episode: s02e23 Twilight, Gen, I know nothing about the actual process of publishing a book, tbh probably milder than canon but still better safe than sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-25 02:31:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14368989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quietest_one/pseuds/quietest_one
Summary: deep-six: (Naval slang) to throw something overboard; (idiomatic) to dispose of something irretrievablyIt takes four weeks for Tim to edit out every mention of Secret Service turned NCIS Special Agent Katherine Tate from his manuscript ofDeep Six.





	Kill Your Darlings

**Author's Note:**

> When Tony and Kate break into Tim's apartment in 2x20 Red Cell, the _Deep Six_ manuscript is on Tim's desk, but he hasn't even met 'Officer Lisa' yet.  
> 

 

 

_deep-six: (Naval slang) to throw something overboard; (idiomatic) to dispose of something irretrievably_

 

It takes four weeks, between cases, for Tim to edit out every mention of Secret Service turned NCIS Special Agent Katherine Tate from his manuscript of _Deep Six._ He empties eight bottles of Wite-Out. One of the hazards of using a typewriter.

When he’s writing, he tells himself that they’re just characters and their resemblance to the team is coincidental – he’s writing what he knows, okay? – but he knows he’s lying to himself. If it were true, it wouldn’t feel like reopening a wound each time he imagines Kathy’s dialogue in Kate’s voice.

 

*

 

Tim tries, at first, to kill her off. Art imitates life, after all. He’s at his typewriter late on a Saturday night, so late it’s early, five days after the ceremony where Kate’s mother accepted the posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom. He calls it free-writing – the loose, stream-of-consciousness style where he types whatever comes to mind, whether it fits into his plot or not.

He tries writing _“The bullet that killed Katherine Tate came out of a blue sky, and no-one, not even Tibbs, saw it coming.”_

He tries _“She hit the floor before they knew where to look, blood and brains splattering across Tommy’s horror-stricken face.”_

He even tries _“The sniper gets off three shots: the first slams into the car six inches to the left of where McGregor was a heartbeat earlier. The second is wide to Tibbs’ right, embedding itself in a wall sixty yards beyond them. The third hits Kathy in the head.”_

And lastly, guiltily _“McGregor, two days later, stands by Kathy's body in the cool gloom of Autopsy, and feels sick and shaky at how grateful he is that it was her and not him with hamburger for brains.”_

He can’t do it.

He shreds the entirety of his free-writing session, over and over, until the fragments of the pages are as small as the tiny shards of skull Tony wiped off his face.

 

* 

 

It’s not until Gibbs is in Mexico that Tim puts the pieces back together. Each place where he removed Kathy Tate, he fills the gap with Mossad Officer Lisa Cohen. There are only a couple of plot holes to patch over: Kathy’s Secret Service colleague becomes Lisa’s Interpol contact; Lisa’s experience at protection detail is explained away by mention of past undercover escort missions. Kathy and Tommy’s sibling-like bickering becomes, with a bit of reworking and a few new passages, Lisa and Tommy’s sexually charged banter. A section touching on Kathy and Amy’s friendship is excised altogether.

The whole operation feels like a surgeon repairing a botched amputation, and Tim isn’t truly happy with the finished product, but his agent has been on his back for weeks now, wants to send the draft to some publishing houses, and he’s not going to miss that opportunity even if it makes Kate's absence sting all over again. His agent has only seen an old draft, and when he delivers the new one, she asks him about the switch.

Tim shrugs. He can’t tell her _my friend is dead_ or even admit that he based the characters on his co-workers to start with. Smiling blandly, he says, “Thought I needed something a little more exotic. Add some sex appeal, some foreign interest.”

“Great,” she says, nodding. “That’s great.”

And Ziva tells him he doesn’t know how to lie.

 

* 

 

The turnaround is quick, after that. Strange to think, after sitting on his manuscript for nearly two years, that the deal is inked and the book edited, corrected and printed inside six months. Sarah emails him chapter-by-chapter criticism as she reads, most of it scathing. His mom wants him to sign half a dozen copies, when he visits at Christmas, so she can give them to all her friends. He doesn’t hear anything from his dad, even though Penny calls to tell him she mailed him a copy.

When the barista in his usual coffee shop asks him to sign his book, Tim is confronted with the finished article for the first time. The publisher sent him two whole boxes, but he didn’t open them, and now they’re stacked in a corner of his apartment collecting dust.

The hardcover is heavier than he thought it would be.

Tim flicks it open, turns to the title page and scribbles the unfamiliar autograph of his alias, next to the neatly printed 'Thom E. Gemcity'. He moves to hand the book back, but something makes him pause, and he turns over again.

The dedication is small and neat, italics on an otherwise-vast, empty page.

_For Kate._

 

 


End file.
